COMP34412 Natural Language Systems syllabus
2017-2018

Students who are not from the School of Computer Science must have permission from both Computer Science and their home School to enrol.

Assessment methods

80% Written exam

20% Coursework

Timetable

Semester

Event

Location

Day

Time

Group

Sem 2

Lecture

1.3

Mon

09:00 - 11:00

-

Themes to which this unit belongs

Natural Language, Representation and Reasoning

Overview

Enabling computers to use 'natural language' (the kind of language that people use to communicate with one another) is becoming more and more important. It allows people to communicate with them without having to use strange artificial languages and awkward devices like keyboards and mice. It also allows the computer to access the enormous amount of material that is stored as natural language text on the web or in document repositories.

This course provides an introduction to the area of natural language processing (NLP), mixing theory (if you don't understand the theory of how language works you cannot possibly write programs that understand it) with practice (if you haven't written or played with tools that embody the theory, you can't get a concrete handle on what the theory means).

Aims

The course unit aims to teach the techniques required to extend the theoretical principles of NLP to applications in a number of critical areas.

To demonstrate how the essential components of practical NLP systems are built and modified.

Teaching methods

Lectures with some practical workshops and guest lecturers

11 x 2 hours

Feedback methods

There is unassessed formative homework given to the students weekly; each lecture then starts with a 10 min feedback session where the students may review the homework from the previous week. Assessed coursework is due in weeks 6 and 11, with feedback in weeks 7 and 12 respectively.